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daily nebraskan
thursday, October 18, 1979
pDillfD
Escort services gratifying response to rape fears
With rumors and. reports of
numerous sexual assaults occurring
on or near campus in recent weeks,
this university has become a place of
fear for many women.
Although apparently the rumors
have been unfounded or greatly
exaggerated, the UNL and city police
departments are urging women to
take precautions and are offering to
make presentations on how to
prevent sexual assaults.
This is good. By learning about
rape, its causes and how to prevent
it, the fear of many women will be
greatly alleviated.
The response of the police
departments and that of the campus
as a whole to the situation has been
gratifying. Not only, are the police
working with various campus groups,
but at least one fraternity and one
residence hall complex have begun
escort services for UNL women.
Women who would like escorts
can call the Beta Theta Pi fraternity
and request that someone from the
house accompany them to their
destinations.
Men of Harper Hall are escorting
the women of Smith Hall and the
Schramm men are serving as escorts
for the women who share the coed
hall with them.
An off-campus group which can
serve as a valuable resource for the
entire campus is the RapeSpouse
Abuse Crisis Center.
The Center works closely with
both the UNL and Lincoln police
departments and like them, has rape
prevention presentations available
upor request. The office at the
Family Services Association, 1 133 H.
St. ib open to anyone interested in
learning about sexual assualt.
Fo the woman who has been
sexually assaulted, the Center has a
24-hour phone line. 475-RAPF
and volunteer workers who will
accompany the victim to the hospital
is she desires that someone be with
her. Short-term counseling is
available and if necessary the woman
will be referred to counselors for
long-term assistance. All their work
is strictly confidential.
Sexual assault is not a laughing
matter. Any assistance which can be
given to alleviate the fears of UNL
women, to help prevent sexual
assault and to help the victim after
such, an incident can only be
beneficial to the campus.
Title IX problem
continues at UNL
The Title IX issue has been controversial since day one.
And it is no hidden fact that UNL was not in compliance,
at least athletically, when it became effective in 1975.
Title IX states that no person shall be discriminated
against in any education program or activity receiving
federal financial assistance.
sfeD0(' sfiiitilh)
In 1975, as a means to ensure compliance, which HEW
. required by June 1976, UNL Chancellor Roy Young
formed a self-study committee. ' ;. V
The committee concluded in a report that in order for
: the university to become compliant the following would
"have to occur: , -
-adequate equipment arid 'supplies will have to be
,made available to the women's teams. - - '
-travel and per deim allowances for members of
women's teams will have to be increased; . :
-opportunity for' coaching must be improved in
-women's sports; ' - '
-the salaries paid to coaches of women's sports must
be improved ; .
-improvement must be made in the quantity and qual
ity of medical and training facilities made available to
women athletes;
-some improvement needs to be made in the quantity
and quality of women's facility support services;
-additional support staff will have to be made avail
able to the Women's Athletic Director;
-more athletic grant-in-aid dollars will have to be made
available to female athletes.
The report stated that the athletic department was
currently working on a plan which would place UNL in
compliance by July 21, 1978.
But, July 21, 1978 came and passed, and there still has
been no word on the improvements UNL has made or if
; any have been made at all.
And, although HEW. has not made any kind of declara
tory decision concerning the rules of compliance, UNL
still had not checked on its own progress and is only doing
so now apparently because it is forced to.
The new self-study committee, appointed by UNL
Chancellor Roy Young at the end of August, was, accord
ing to one committee member, appointed because of a
rumor that HEW was planning to investigate the univer
sity. Before, the member said, HEW was "big and far away,'
and no one ever thought they would check up on univer
sity compliance.
"The Chancellor gave us one month for our investiga
tion but last month, by some fluke, HEW came and re
viewed us on something else," the committee member
said.
The committee is made up of eight university faculty
members, two students and one Lincoln community
member. Only one faculty member has anything to do
with women's sports-Barb Hibner, assistant athletic
director for women's athletics, and only one other
member has anything to do with athletics at all-Don
Bryant, sports information director.
The committee, last Sunday night, held their first open
meeting with women athletes and dubbed it an "informa-.
tion gathering session.
Chancellor Young, when contacted, claimed HEW's
lack of an official interpretation of Title IX as an excuse
for no earlier compliance study.
However, although no interpretation was made, UNL
still should have been making every effort to ensure com
pliance as required by law.
Pregnant teens to get federal aid
WASHINGTON Some federal money though
little more than loose change in the government's deep
pocket-is finally going where it's needed: for the care
of pregnant adolescents. Last week, HEW awarded
$740,000 to four comprehensive service centers for young
women some as young as 12 or 13 who are either
pregnant or already mothers. 1
. Although federal involvement in the problem of what
is called "children. having children" dates to the mid-60s,
it was only last November that Congress created the
Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs within HEW.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the main sponsor of the
legislation, did what he could to win adequate funding for
OAPP. But instead of $60 million that was requested, the
actual sum expected to be appropriated this year is $17
million.
Debates about money billow the sails of every piece of
social legislation that moves through Congress. But with
the budget people having had their iron say, a debate of
philosophies now dominates the discussion of what the
program should emphasize as it starts out.
Supporters of the contraception-abortion-sex
education approach want to stress "primany prevention "
They despair at the figures: one million teen-age
pregnancies a year, 600,000 births, three in four babies
born to black teenagers are illegitimate and one in five
among white teenagers. This, it is said, is the result of
"continued ignorance" about sex, reproduction, fertility
control and parenthood. Primary prevention is seen as the
most eiieciive wav 01 dealing with "th oniAmi,
The other reproach involves comprehensive supportive
service programs for the young women. These would
increase the chances for the physical and emotional health
of the mother and baby, and for both to go on to lead
useful and whole lives.
In following this debate for the past few years, as well
as visiting the Johns Hopkins Center for School-Aged
Mothers and Their Infants unknown as the best
program in the country I think the second approach is
. much sounder and more humane.
TO BEGIN with, it rightly rejects the notion that
teenage pregnancy is an epidemic, as though this is a
sudden outbreak of Swine Flu that can be handled with
the quick-fix of a miracle drug. Too many social workers
have reported the bad news that this jolution of
sliow-them-a-film-and-harid-them-a-diaphragm
nasn t done much. Dr. James Jekel of Yale Medical School '
says: "As in many areas of public health, those at highest
nskare least likely to use the services."
The thrust behind the contraceptive ethic is that the
young especially the "ignorant" young who are black
or poor deserve to be read out of society because they
have sinned. The offense isn't the old-fashioned one of
loose sexual morals but the modern and more horrible one
of sinning against the budget. If society, it is said, ends up
paying for thsoe babies through the immense costs of
weltare and food stamps, then it has a right to command
obedience to the eleventh commandment, Thou Shalt Not
Strain the Federal Budget.
But the birth rate among adolescents girls 17 and
under continues to rise. Dr. Janet Hardy, the
co-direc or of the Johns Hopkins center in Baltimore and
an inspiring physician, says that we are dealing with a
diversity of problems. Some are as obvious as poor
nutrition, others are the deeper wounds of
sell-alienation. All of them, she says, "stem from the
pnysical and psycho-social immaturity which, in many
instances, leads to complications of pregnancy and fetal
aamagc on the one hand and to a less than adequate
environment in which to nurture children on the
(c) 1979, The Washington Pott Company